The Tyranny of Gender Ideology in Practice
Gender ideology has become an obsession throughout the West, and it's transforming into a practical tyranny.
There is an ever-growing obsession with gender ideology throughout the West, as is the case in Canada. Ever since the fall of 2016, when famed psychologist Jordan Peterson made a series of YouTube videos that were critical of Bill C-16, a bill that has since been passed into law and amended the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Criminal Code to include gender identity and expression as prohibited grounds for discrimination, the march toward usurping every institution has taken place at a dramatic rate.
Educational institutions, from junior kindergarten to graduate level studies at the university, have pushed forward in full force the social-constructionist position, which promotes the idea that people are the gender they identify as, regardless of whether it contradicts their actual sex and the realities of biology and sexual dimorphism.
It has also become commonplace for professional colleges of psychology, psychotherapy, pediatrics, physicians, and surgeons to peddle these unscientific and unethical gender ideologies; there is also an incessant push from medical doctors and psychologists to administer puberty blockers to children and adolescents and to aid their undergoing genital mutilation and mastectomies.
On January 7, 2022, Bill C-4, was introduced to not only ban but also amend the criminal code to criminalize the practice of conversion therapy. This means that it is a crime to play any role in “changing” or attempting to “change” someone’s sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender expression. The implications are extremely worrisome since it criminalizes any attempt, even at the request of the individual seeking treatment, to receive therapy to help such individuals toward heterosexual orientation and identifying their gender identity with the sex they were born as. This betrays the moral conscience of counselors, medical professionals, and clergy from religious traditions who uphold a traditional and natural view of identity and sexuality.
Much like the Covid frenzy, this has been done in partnership with governments, professional colleges, medical institutions, educational institutions, big pharma, big tech, and the media. In a 65-page section of my book Making Sense of Nonsense: Navigating through the West’s Current Quagmire, I and several other authors examine the various harms of gender ideology. My colleague and co-contributor philosopher Pablo Munoz Iturrieta notes that the revolution of gender identity “is leading us, in the name of freedom, towards the annihilation of what it really means to be human, giving way to a new category: gender identity.” This all ties into the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which seeks to impose gender ideologies globally, as made clear by Goal 5 (gender equality) and Goal 10 (reduction of inequalities).
Last November, at St. Joseph’s Catholic High School in Renfrew, Ontario, Josh Alexander, a brave 16-year-old Catholic high school student, was suspended for making factual statements about there being solely two genders in an open class discussion regarding males using female washrooms, gender dysphoria, and male breastfeeding. After this discussion, he was told not to return until he recanted and agreed to certain terms.
On Monday, February 6, Josh decided to return to school but was arrested and charged with trespassing. This so-called “Catholic” school will not let Josh re-attend classes until he agrees not to mention the “dead name” (the original name of a student prior to “transitioning”) and to exclude himself from two afternoon classes attended by two transgender students who disapprove of Josh’s religious views.
The first thing to note is that Josh apparently never “dead named” any student. Second, it is remarkable but unsurprising that this “Catholic” school is siding with gender ideology instead of supporting a student who is defending traditional Catholic belief and natural law. Catholic schools throughout Canada have become more accommodating to gender ideology than secularized public schools since they partake in explicitly defying traditional Catholic teachings in favor of bowing down to pernicious ideologies that have no moral and scientific grounding.
By strange coincidence, on the same day of Josh’s arrest, a loving father residing in British Columbia, who goes by the name C.D. (a pseudonym), and who has been in a legal battle with the courts for attempting to prevent his 14-year-old daughter (who goes by A.B.) from being administered gender transition hormone therapy (puberty blockers), was arrested yet again for contempt of court for “misgendering” his daughter. ”
In 2021, he was sentenced to six months in prison and fined $30,000 for allegedly revealing information related to his daughter’s medical status and treatments, which could have possibly revealed the family’s identity. These are the consequences parents face for refusing to kowtow to gender ideology and rightly refusing to refer to their children by genders and pronouns that contradict their real and natural identity.
The case has been reported throughout the United States, but because of a public ban imposed by corrupt courts within Canada, the story is relatively unknown in Canada. It was featured in the documentary What Is a Woman? by Matt Walsh. In the documentary, when Walsh asks C.D., “What’s your message to parents who are trying to cope with this?” his response was:
The first thing is to tell parents that they are not alone. It is our responsibility as a parent to be the frontline defense for our children. And I know with my child, a lot of people will say was it worth it? Because now, seemingly, [you] have lost your child. And I’ll say, yeah, but at least I’ve saved my conscience, and my morals and my convictions. And when my child turns 25 and says, “Dad where were you?” I’ll say, I was there. I was fighting as hard as I could. I was not prepared to let this happen.
I could go on listing additional examples, but I think these paint a sufficiently ominous picture. These events set a dangerous precedent for Canadians’ religious freedom, freedom of conscience, and freedom of speech. And they inevitably bring dire consequences for parents who want to protect their children from harmful medical treatments that will be regretted later in life.
It is worth pointing out that finite intelligibility is grounded in complete intelligibility. The fact that we are able to formulate general laws of science, use mathematics and logic, possess the ability to communicate, and discern truth in its various manifestations is a reflection of an unbounded intelligibility—the sort of thing we should expect if there is any correspondence between reality and our minds.
In Canada, the tyranny of gender ideology is stripping parents of their rights and their ability to do what is in the best interest of their children. As the State continues to intervene in matters of family and parenting, we must be reminded of Pope John Paul II’s warning in his powerful homily of November 30, 1986, that “As the family goes, so goes the nation, and so goes the whole world in which we live.” What is happening in Canada should be a warning for the rest of the world.
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